Remembering Stuttgart’s pioneers during Black History Month

I have written about the early African-American pioneers in Stuttgart, on the Grand Prairie and in Arkansas.

Bill Shrum, bshrum@stuttgartdailyleader.com

Since I started back at my newspaper desk, approximately seven years ago, with this column space, I have been writing about Black History Month in February.

I have written concerning the history of how the month began from a weekly observance, mostly in the African-American community to the nationwide and monthly observance it has become. There are a number of citizens who don't see the significance of the observance, but I think it is still needed for everyone to stand up and cheer for those Americans who paved the way for others to achieve their ultimate goal in life, whatever it was to be in the first place.

I have written about the early African-American pioneers in Stuttgart, on the Grand Prairie and in Arkansas.

I have written about both the men and women who have shaped this region and state and overcame obstacles to achieve their personal success and goals. From Joe Bush, who is considered the first African-American citizen in Stuttgart, when Phillip Reinsch brought him to train his horses to race in the late 19th and early 20th Century to Dr. J. B. Bryant, the first African-American doctor, who arrived in Stuttgart with his wife in 1913. These two men set the standards of working and living in the South when it wasn't that easy to do.

There were also African-American women who blazed the trail in Stuttgart and on the Grand Prairie, such as Helen Wofford, Dr. J. B. Bryant's nurse, who virtually ran his office, kept his appointments and assisted him in those small quarters he called an office on North Maple Street. I had the pleasure of speaking with her in the early 2000s when she was frail and sick, however she did tell me she worked for him and that he was the nicest, sweetest and most generous person she had ever known on this earth. I will never forget that as long as I live. I also talked with some of his patients, who are well in their 50s, 60s and 70s now concerning him as a doctor and man. Those are some of the perks that we have as a writer, that only come around very few and far between.

There was another African-American businessman in Stuttgart in the early 20th Century that has virtually been forgotten and that is Jim Guest. If it had not been for a simple photograph and his name on it, I would not have pursued his name at all, but being a researcher and a question person, I just asked around. He had a telephone number in the 1910 and 1920 Stuttgart directory, which means a lot back then and his occupation was listed as a wood hauler. This is not necessarily needed in today's world, but back in the early 20th century, with wood burning stoves of all types in the home, there was a great need for it. However, sometimes after 1920, his name disappeared and I am still searching for his whereabouts after that time period.

John Holman, the first African-American teacher to have a school named after him is another famous African-American that Stuttgart can call a pioneer. He was known as Professor Holman, as that is what they called male African-American teachers back then. He taught primarily the first two grades, but unlike teachers in those days, he taught all of the grades and his wife was a teacher also. The couple died in the late 1930s or early 1940s. The present day building, which was a school for African-American children built in the late 1940s, stands today, which is now the Holman Heritage Community Center. There are still a number of citizens who remember the Holmans as their teachers and being in the same classroom with them.

In the 1950s and 1960s there were a number of African Americans who eventually became famous in their own neighborhoods. They were the voice of the neighborhood on the verge of the Civil Rights Era. Everyone in the African-American community knew who they were, they were just not in the mainstream of Stuttgart.

That was just the way it was. The African Americans lived in areas of town with other African Americans and not all over town like it is now. That was the way neighborhoods were organized. Everyone lived in a close area. The children couldn't get into trouble because everyone knew what they were doing and would tell their parents, that was the way it was. That also happened in other areas of Stuttgart too at the same time period.